


Don't Lift The Veil

by lucifersfavoritechild



Series: Ironstrange Cinematic Universe [11]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, Mortality and Immortality, Post-Endgame, Post-From the Top, Sad Ending, Sorry guys, This Is Sad, Tony is dead and I feel bad, canon character death, discussions of death mortality immortality and grief, i'm sorry guys, it's a lot, kind of, so does Stephen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22461364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucifersfavoritechild/pseuds/lucifersfavoritechild
Summary: A thousand years in the future, Stephen is Sorcerer Supreme, but his husband Tony Stark is dead. One of the sorcerers gets the idea to summon his spirit, but it doesn't quite work out.
Relationships: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange
Series: Ironstrange Cinematic Universe [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1466356
Comments: 6
Kudos: 120





	Don't Lift The Veil

Stephen stumbled into Kamar-Taj, only narrowly avoiding breaking his skull on the floor by an apprentice sorcerer lurching forward and taking his arm.

"Master Strange?" The girl said, then, more anxiously, "Master Strange?!"

 _April,_ Stephen thought to himself, placing the voice. He tried to reassure her, but instead made an odd choking sound and blacked out. _Oh, shit . . ._

* * *

When he woke again, April was still there, only there was a Master of the Mystic Arts who specialized in healing magic beside her and they were in Stephen's bedroom.

April dabbed at Stephen's forehead with a warm towel. No one was sure if that was necessary, but it seemed the thing to do. "Are you alright, Master Strange?"

Stephen tried to sit up and bit back a scream when doing so put pressure on the stab wound in his stomach. "More or less."

April lightly pushed him back down on the bed. "Sir," she said gently, like she was speaking to a child, "you should rest now. You were badly hurt."

Stephen dropped his head on the pillow, sulking. "I don't want to rest. I am the Sorcerer Supreme, I can do what I want."

"Of course you can," April cooed. 

Stephen scowled, waving away the healer. Still, April refused to leave, sitting on the bed beside his knees with her legs crossed.

Stephen sighed, but didn't send her away. Perhaps he was getting soft in his old age (a thousand years was a long time even for a sorcerer), but in truth it was a weakness he had towards some of the young sorcerers. April in particular was dear to him, being the descendant of precious Peter. More than forty generations separated her from Spider-Man, but he allowed himself to believe that he could see a bit of the wide-eyed teen he once knew in her. 

Just as he was getting melancholy, April started bouncing her legs, bored. _Ah, there it is._ "Are you alright, April?"

". . . Yes."

It was going to be a long day.

* * *

April refused to relent, and Stephen refused to sleep. Now at a stalemate, they passed the time by playing card games and idly chatting.

April placed her card. "Skip you, I go again. The color is red, and you draw four."

"Fuck," Stephen muttered before succumbing to the will of the Uno cards.

April smirked, looking down at her own cards. "Hey, Master Strange, have you always been a sorcerer?"

Stephen was old enough that none of the living sorcerers had been there when he first came to Kathmandu. Long before April's time and after Tony's death nine hundred years ago, all the information about who Doctor Stephen Strange had been was lost. Or destroyed, rather. Now few even knew who he'd been before becoming Sorcerer Supreme, and for the most part he preferred it that way. Any immortal could tell you that memories were the enemy.

So he wasn't quite sure why he said, "No."

April quirked a brow. "Where did you come from?"

He hesitated before answering. “Before I came to Kamar-Taj, I lived in New York with my husband.” He shrugged. “Fiance, at the time.”

April stared at him, wide-eyed. “Oh my God — Master Strange, I had no idea you were _married_ —”

“Widowed now,” Stephen said quietly before laying down another card.

April blinked, her cheeks heating and turning red. “I’m . . . I’m sorry—”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one who brought it up.” He frowned. “There really is no point of a Reverse card if you’re just playing with two people.”

They played in awkward silence for another minute before April asked, “Do you want to talk about it? Or, him, I guess?”

Then the strangest thing happened.

Stephen _smiled._

“I could tell you everything about him. Who he was, how we met. The color of his eyes and the shape of his nose. I can see him right in front of me. He is more real to me than you.”

His smile was sad, and his blue-green eyes seemed to lose their light. He laid another card, and when he spoke again, this time about an envoy that needed to be sent to the Nat'hal dimension, it was clear that the conversation was over.

* * *

But April was never one to give up so easily. It was in her blood. She was ninety percent sure she was descended from Superheroes (considering her family had the right Peter Parker in their tree and not some rando from the same time).

She spent over a week going through everything she could find about their current Sorcerer Supreme. It wasn't easy. He was a private person even by hero standards, and had been born roughly a thousand years ago. But that was right at the start of the information age, and though it meant sorting through piles of white noise and conspiracy theorist bullshit, she was able to find some old interviews and articles from around his time that referenced a Stephen Strange . . . and his husband, Tony Stark.

That was the most surprising part. Even children knew who Iron Man was, one of Earth's first and greatest protectors, who lost an arm bringing half the universe back to life and defeating the Mad Titan Thanos. 

_But if they knew each other, why doesn't Strange ever mention him?_

If her theory was correct, then they hadn't just known each other - they'd loved each other, and had been married for almost fifty years (longer, if you counted the time Strange apparently lost to Thanos). They had _children_ together. The memory must have been painful to him, living so long without his beloved, forced to remain on Earth and carry out his duties as Sorcerer Supreme.

 _Oh, Stephen . . ._ She'd always known that their leader carried a heavy burden, but she had no idea he'd lost so _much_. She wanted to do something, anything to help him . . . 

And she had just the idea.

“Okay,” April said, placing the last candle and looking back at her book. “This . . . should _probably_ work.”

There were a few days when the veils between dimensions were thin. The winter solstice was one such time. The borders had only grown weaker after centuries of attacks from aliens and other-worldly beings. The perfect time for such a spell.

April sat in the circle of candles and crossed her legs. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, her third eye opened too, and the silvery light of Oshtur poured forth into the room. She could see the dimensions laid over each other, and the things that lingered nearby. Some of them seemed almost familiar.

Her mouth moved almost unbidden as she spoke. “Oshtur Star-Eye, Mother of Agamotto, guide to sorcerors living and dead, I call upon you to find the soul I seek and lead it to me—” Her breath caught as the spirits started to take shape. Away and above Kamar-Taj, she could feel Oshtur looking upon her. “Bring me Anthony Edward Stark, Iron Man, Saviour of the Universe and Earth’s Defender, husband to the Sorcerer Supreme Stephen Strange, lead him here and show him to me—”

Suddenly she fell forward, the spell cut short as a breeze filled the room snuffing out all the candles. A moment later, Stephen Strange walked into her vision, knocking over the candles and using his heel to disrupt the chalk circle. When he looked at her, she flinched from his gaze. “ _What are you doing?!_ ”

April shook her head, the movement slow and heavy. “I don’t . . . I . . .”

“It is the _solstice_ , the walls between worlds are thin and weak, all _sorts_ of things linger in the liminal spaces, waiting to break through! You didn’t even ward or purify this room, you could have invited any _number_ of monsters and specters into this sacred place! What were you _thinking_ , what were you even _trying to do?!_ ”

April frowned, fearing tears prickle at her eyes. “I was just . . . I was trying to find Tony for you . . .”

Stephen stared at her in shocked silence as April’s head dropped, tears streaming down her cheeks. Then he leaned down and wiped a tear away, his voice growing soft. “Go to sleep. The spell exhausted you. We’ll speak tomorrow.”

She could do nothing but obey.

* * *

The next morning, April awoke to find Stephen already in her room, meditating on a mat in the corner. He opened his eyes when she saw him. “You’re awake.”

April nodded, yawning tiredly. “What, uh . . . what happened?”

Stephen uncrossed his legs, resting his chin on one hand. Even after all this time, it was still scarred and shaking. “You attempted to summon my husband from beyond the grave, and I stopped you.”

“Oh, that sounds about right.” She frowned. “Why did you stop me?”

Stephen considered it for a moment, his blue-green eyes showing nothing. “It’s quite insulting that you think I don’t know how to summon a soul. I’ve read every book here, know every spell. I can summon ghosts as easily as most people can snap.”

“Then why . . .”

Stephen shrugged. “I did. I admit now that I wasn’t always careful. I made the same mistakes as you. But twice a year for about a century, Tony and I met and were together. And that seemed like everything that mattered.” He looked away. “But we couldn’t keep going like that. It was worse than have each other for a moment and be wrenched away again than to never see each other. And it disturbed his rest, and there’s no one who deserves to rest more than Tony.”

Despite herself, April knew she was crying again. “I’m so sorry.”

Stephen smiled sadly. “So am I.” He stood up. “But I know that one day, in my time of greatest need, Tony and I will find each other again. He’s always there for me when I need him. That will have to be enough for now.” He walked to the door, opening it slightly. “I’ll see you in my class on defensive magic later, yes?”

She swallowed past the weight in her throat. “Promise.”

Stephen nodded once and left, closing the door behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> I made myself sad
> 
> "“I could tell you everything about him. Who he was, how we met. The color of his eyes and the shape of his nose. I can see him right in front of me. He is more real to me than you.” quote paraphrased from asoiaf, and this fic is kind of based on [this post I made on tumblr](https://funkylittlebidiot.tumblr.com/post/189684606773/stephen-a-thousand-years-from-now-reminiscing)


End file.
